Everlaw's deposition transcript tools help you identify and pull out key testimony and video clips to use as evidence in your case, both within Storybuilder and outside of Everlaw. When a transcript contains a key quote that you want to use as evidence elsewhere, you can excerpt that testimony as a unique piece of evidence and even add it as evidence into an upcoming deponent's Deposition. These tools help you preserve meaningful evidence from both documents and testimony in Storybuilder, while allowing you to share that evidence and collaborate with your case team.
Read this article to learn how to write a deposition summary and analyze a transcript in a Storybuilder Deposition.
If you're just getting started preparing for a deposition, we have articles on how to prepare for a deposition and how to conduct a deposition using Depositions in Everlaw.
Introduction
In a Deposition, you can upload a transcript and any previously marked exhibits are automatically linked and accessed with a single click within the transcript. You can identify key testimony to be referenced in other work product (Drafts and Depositions), and testimony citations can be copy-pasted outside of Everlaw.
Write a Deposition summary
Required permission: Edit permission on the Deposition
Following the conclusion of a deposition, the Summary is helpful to briefly gather the major points, which might be lengthy and dense. The Summary tool is freeform and allows you to collaborate with others on your team without having to leave the Deposition.
To begin your summary:
- Access your Deposition. You can do this by selecting the relevant card from the homepage
or from the Storybuilder Deposition tab. - In the deposition, select Summary in the top right of the screen.
- Start writing your summary. Your writing is saved automatically.
Summaries function almost identically to Drafts. Multiple users can edit the Summary at once, changes are saved in real time, and work product can be exported.
You cannot conduct the following actions in Summary:
-
Create a copy
Tip
To make a copy, we recommend that you export the document and re-import it as a new Draft, or copy and paste the text to a separate Summary or Draft
- Reference documents: To see your document list, toggle back to the Deposition view.
- Export to PDF (with images)
You can learn about editing a Summary by visiting this section of the Drafts help article.
Upload a transcript and supported formats
Required permission: Edit permissions on the deposition
Format requirements: Transcripts must have line numbers on the left margins of the document. Everlaw supports the following transcript formats:
- PDFs
- TXT
- DVT
- PTX transcript files.
If necessary, Everlaw automatically OCRs transcript files on upload.
The maximum size for a transcript file is 200MB.
You can upload a transcript to a Deposition object you’ve already created.
Note
Uploading a transcript into a Deposition does not upload the transcript as a document in the database. Transcripts are only viewable on the Deposition object. Transcripts do not count toward the billable size of your database.
To upload a transcript:
- Enter the Deposition, then select Transcript in the top right of the screen.
- Browse or drag and drop or browse to select your transcript file.
- Enter the Testimony citation. This is the citation that is used whenever you reference excerpted testimony.
- [Optional] If you are uploading a video file with the transcript, select Add transcript video files. See our article on video depositions to learn more about how to upload these files.
- Select Upload.
You can also upload a transcript when creating a Deposition. You are prompted to add it at the second step of creating a deposition. After you add it, select Create.
Troubleshoot uploading a transcript
If you experience an error when uploading a transcript, it might be because of the following:
- Parsing: The transcript viewer handles documents with a certain format and it must “parse” (read and interpret) the text to separate it into line numbers, which are displayed but not selectable, and text content, which is selectable. If you experience a parsing error, the transcript is not uploaded, or some lines are not highlightable. When this occurs, you can either replace your file with a different one or try the same file again. When you upload a video deposition along with a transcript that has parsing issues, video processing fails.
- Max size limit: You may have tried to upload a transcript larger than 200 MB. You must replace your file with a smaller transcript file for upload.
-
Formatting error: Your document is a supported file type, and has parsable text, but is not recognized as a supported transcript format. Your document is uploaded successfully, but some, most, or all of the text is be unselectable and greyed out.
- Scanned PDFs, 4-page manuscripts, or transcripts with unusual numbering schemes are not optimal for the transcript uploader. These files are uploaded and readable if they’re an Everlaw-supported file type, but likely have formatting errors. You cannot link exhibits or create testimony.
- Dots in transcript text: If you notice dots where spaces should be in your transcript text after uploading to Everlaw, this is generally due to uploading a PDF which includes dots (the middle-dot character Unicode U+00B7) in a transparent or white font. These are sometimes added when court reporting services create the PDF version of a transcript. To resolve this, upload the transcript in another format which has only the original source text like TXT, DVT, or PTX. Alternatively, request that the court reporting service provide PDF transcripts without using the middle-dot (Unicode U+00B7) character as spacers.
View Your Transcript
Once your transcript is uploaded successfully, you are taken directly to the transcript view of the Deposition. The transcript lives within the Deposition, in a separate view accessible via the Transcript tab in the top right of the page.
Transcripts are loaded as scrollable, selectable-text files with line numbering. Once the transcript file is rendered, you can read and analyze it to identify and pull out the most important parts.
Note
If headers and footers are included in your transcript, those are included but disabled from selection. Any other text that is not transcribed (such as appendices) are also included but disabled from selection.
Link Exhibits Automatically and Manually
Documents that are marked as exhibits are important because they represent critical information introduced during the deposition. In Everlaw, you can mark documents as exhibits, and assign aliases to exhibits. When references to exhibits in the transcript text match the way your exhibits are marked within the Everlaw Deposition, the exhibit documents are automatically linked so you can preview them with a single click. You can also manually link any text within the transcript to an exhibit. This section describes each of these processes.
Marking exhibits
To mark a document as an exhibit:
- Select the document in the Evidence panel in the list to open the document details view. From there, you can assign an exhibit name, which consists of the prefix and the alphanumeric identifier. This is also commonly referred to as the exhibit number.
- If the exhibit is identified with a prefix other than "Exhibit" within the transcript text, such as its Bates prefix, enter that prefix in the Prefix field.
- Enter the Exhibit number of the document. For example, if a document is referred to as "Exhibit 1", its exhibit number is "1". If it is referred to as "ABC 073," its exhibit number is "073" (and its prefix is ABC).
- Select Save.
Depending on your permissions, you can also add or edit the available prefixes from the prefix manager. To do so, go to EXHIBIT LINKS > Manage prefixes.
For more information about marking documents as exhibits, please see this article about using Storybuilder during a deposition.
Automatic linking based on exhibit names
If you have marked documents as exhibits, Everlaw can automatically identify and link references to the exhibits in the transcript. Any linked text in the transcript will appear as a blue hyperlink.
Clicking on linked text will open a panel with the following options:
When you select the link, you have a few options:
- Preview
: Open a preview of the document
- Exhibit link
: View and edit the document linked as this exhibit in the Evidence panel
- If you change the linked exhibit, it only affects the particular instance of linked text you are viewing, not all instances of the same text in the transcript
- Unlink
: Unlink the text from the exhibit. Unlinking only affects the particular instance of linked text you are viewing. Other instances of the same text in the transcript will not be affected.
Automatic linking is based on exact textual matches with the exhibit name (prefix plus identifier).
Automatic linking based on aliases
If exhibits are referred to in the transcript by something other than their names, you can automatically link these alternative references using the alias tool. For example, if the phrase “phone logs” is used to refer to an exhibit, you can assign “phone logs” as an alias of that exhibit.
Aliases can be created and managed from the alias management pop-up.
To create new aliases for an exhibit:
- Go to EXHIBIT LINKS (
) > Manage aliases.
- Select +New alias. A new row appears on the table.
- Select the exhibit (document) you wish to create aliases for. Keep in mind that the exhibit must be assigned to a document in the deposition before it appears here as an available option.
- After you select the exhibit, input the aliases in the Alias column, with one unique alias per line. Aliases can be any alphanumeric text string; if an alias contains invalid symbols, like dashes or dots, Everlaw will convert them to spaces.
- A given alias can only be assigned to one exhibit
- Aliases that are part of other aliases are allowed. In such cases the more inclusive alias takes precedence. For example, imagine that you have alias “logs” assigned to Exhibit 1 and alias “computer logs” assigned to Exhibit 2. All instances of “computer logs” in the transcript will be linked to Exhibit 2, while all standalone instances of “logs” will be linked to Exhibit 1.
- Select Create.
- [Optional] Select an additional exhibit to create an alias for.
- Select Save.
When making changes on the alias pop-up, keep in mind that you must both (1) save the individual changes to the rows and (2) save the overall changes for any modifications to take effect.
Automatic linking based on suggested exhibit links
Based on the prefixes you’ve configured for the deposition, Everlaw searches the transcript text for possible exhibit references that are not linked to any document (exhibits), and suggest them to you for assignment to documents. For more information on how to add or edit prefixes, please see this article with information about marking documents as exhibits.
For example, imagine you have two prefixes set up in your deposition: the default “Exhibit” prefix and a new “Plaintiff Exhibit” prefix. Everlaw searches the transcript for every unlinked instance of text in the transcript that follows this pattern: [PREFIX] [WORD]. All instances of this pattern are identified as "suggested exhibit links." The number of unlinked instances of this text pattern are identified next to the link button.
Select the link button in the transcript toolbar to open a pop-up that allows you to browse through all instances of text that match the pattern above.
As you navigate through the suggested exhibit links, you can choose the document in your evidence panel to link to that suggestion.
Once assigned to a document, all references to the exhibit in the transcript are automatically linked.
Manual linking and unlinking
In addition to automatic linking, you can also manually link and unlink specific transcript text. To do so:
- Click and drag your mouse over the text you want to link to an exhibit.
- Release your mouse and a popup appears. Select the link button.
- Click into the Enter document name or exhibit number field. A dropdown with possible documents to link appears.
- Select the exhibit you'd like to link.
Manual actions only affect the given instance of text; other instances of the same text in the transcript are not affected. To link this document everywhere that this text appears in the transcript, select Create alias from selected text. Then, a new alias is created and all instances of the selected text in the transcript are linked to the exhibit.
Browse through all exhibit references
After a document is marked as an exhibit, the document details view contains a count of all the exhibit references linked in the transcript. This includes text automatically linked through the exhibit name and aliases and manually linked text. Use the arrows to navigate through all locations in the transcript that the exhibit is referenced.
Mass unlinking and reassignment of links
There are three actions that can result in either a mass unlinking of text or reassignment of links:
- Unassign an exhibit: If you have assigned a document an exhibit number, then edit the exhibit number to remove it, this is equivalent to unassigning the exhibit. The document is no longer marked as the exhibit and all instances of the exhibit name in the transcript are no longer linked.
-
Delete a prefix: When a prefix is deleted, all aliases associated with that prefix are also deleted. Marked exhibits that use that prefix will fall back to the default “Exhibit” prefix, except in cases where that would result in conflicting marked exhibits.For example, imagine you have three marked exhibits: “Exhibit 1”, “Gov Exhibit 1”, and “Gov Exhibit 2”. If you delete the prefix “Gov Exhibit”:
- “Gov Exhibit 2 becomes “Exhibit 2” in the document details panel.
- Instances of “Exhibit 2” become linked to the document that got reassigned to "Exhibit 2"
- Instances of “Gov Exhibit 2” in the transcript are unlinked
- “Gov Exhibit 1” is unassigned from having an exhibit number, because it would become “Exhibit 1,” which is in conflict with the existing “Exhibit 1” and that is not allowed.
- Delete or editing aliases: If an alias is deleted, all corresponding text in the transcript will become unlinked. If an alias is edited, all text corresponding to the edited alias will become linked.
Search, Highlight, and Create Testimony
Click and drag text in the transcript to:
- Run searches
- Highlight important text
- Elevate the text as testimony so that it is referenceable throughout your Story.
Search the transcript
The transcript viewer supports full text search, including words, phrases, regular expression (regex), fuzzy, proximity, and wildcard searches. To run a search:
- Click and drag text in the transcript.
- Select the magnifying glass.
- Navigate to the Search tab where you will see the resulting search. If you select more than one word, Everlaw creates a phrase search.
You can also search your transcript by entering your desired term into the search box in the Search tab, then pressing Enter on your keyboard.
Your term is added to the Search hit list in the right side panel. Each search highlight is assigned a random color.
Here are some additional details about searching a transcript:
- Searches are user-specific and not viewable by anyone else on the Deposition.
- Once you refresh the browser, or navigate away from the page, your searches are cleared.
- Select the “X” icon next to a search to remove it without moving away from the page.
Search all transcripts
You can search across all deposition transcripts by going to the Depositions tab of Storybuilder. In addition to word and phrase searches, the content search box also supports all the advanced search functionality described in this article.
Highlight the transcript
You can create a highlight from your text selection. To do so:
- Click and drag to select the text.
- When you release the mouse, select the highlight button to highlight the text.
Click the caret to choose a new color.
You can also click the highlighter icon in the toolbar directly, then click and drag to highlight.
Tip
We recommend this method if you’re creating an overlapping highlight.
Once you’ve highlighted text, a dialog box appears with options to annotate, edit, and label your highlight.
Add to Story as key testimony
To add text as testimony in a Story:
- Select and highlight the text you want to make into a testimony.
This opens a dialog. - Select + Add to Story to add the text to your Story Timeline.
- [Optional] If you would like to add the testimony directly to a Draft or Deposition, select the add reference
button.
Note: The References option is only available if the testimony has been added to the story.
Then Select a Draft or Deposition from the list.
When you add a highlight to your Story, thereby creating testimony, you see an editable details panel. Here, you can add a Story date, and description and relevance to your testimony. These details are updated in the Timeline and across any Depositions or Drafts that your added the piece of testimony to.
You can also add this testimony snippet to another Deposition or Draft from this panel. To do so:
- If the details panel isn't open, select the highlight, then select Show story details to open the details of the testimony
-
Scroll to References and select the add
button.
-
Choose the Deposition or Draft to add this testimony to. You can add testimony to any Deposition or Draft in that Story (including the source Deposition the testimony came from).
To learn more about referencing testimony in your Draft, visit Deposition 1 of 4: Preparation.
If you select Remove from Story, the highlight remains in your transcript, but the testimony in your Timeline and any Depositions or Drafts you’ve added it to is deleted.
Labels
You can apply labels added to your Story (Timeline) to highlights in a transcript, whether you add the highlight to the story or not. As you apply labels, tabs appear above the highlight for easier skimming. If the highlight is testimony (you select +add to Story), you can use labels to filter by testimony and documents in the Timeline.
Edit highlight range
You can edit the selected range of a highlight. If you have already added labels or elevated the highlight to be testimony in your Story, this is better than deleting it and creating a new one since it retains the work product. To do so:
- Select the highlight and then select the pencil in the dialog box.
You enter Edit Mode, in which you can select a new range to replace the previously selected one.
- Select the new range by clicking and dragging.
- When you’re satisfied with your new selection, select Save in the blue banner.
Your range is updated in the transcript, and throughout the Story if your highlight has been elevated to testimony.
Copy-paste text with citation
You can copy the highlighted text along with its citation to use outside of Everlaw. To do so, select the highlight, then select the Copy text with citation button. Now you can paste this text into a different application.
The pasted text includes the transcript text in quotation marks (with line breaks at any start of a question or answer detected in the transcript), followed by the citation in parentheses.
To edit the citationThe citation, go to Settings > Edit citation. Then type in the new citation and select Save.
This updates citations for all existing testimony from this transcript throughout your Story.
Note that throughout your Story, anywhere that you reference testimony, you can also copy the text with its citation.
Notes
You an add a note to any highlight. To do so, select the highlight and then select the Add a new note input box. When you're done writing your note, select Save. Your note is applied to the document, published by you, and timestamped. A notes icon will appear as a tab above the highlight for easier skimming.
Anyone with at least View permissions on the Deposition can view all notes (including author and date) and highlights.
Navigate Highlights and Testimony
You can toggle between highlights in your transcript by using the Highlights panel. This panel displays Story details like title and labels. Use the left and right paddles to jump through all highlights. You can also navigate between a single label category, or even a specific label within that category.
Select the drop-down to the right of the highlights header to filter.
There are three ways to filter:
- Added to Story: To filter to limit your navigation to highlights promoted to testimony
- Has notes: To filter by highlights with notes
- Filter by labels: Select the label(s) to filter by. You can use multiple filters at once, if needed.
If multiple highlights start at the same location, the tabs above the highlights are condensed. In the image below, two highlights both start at the beginning of the same line, so you can’t see the labels above them. Instead, the count of labels is displayed. Select the tabs to open up that specific highlight and see which labels are applied.
Export Annotated Transcripts
Once you have annotated the transcript with highlights, you can download these annotations. You can choose to download only annotations with specific labels, and decided whether or not to include your notes. To download an annotated transcript:
- Select Download in the toolbar.
-
You can choose to download :
- The transcript in its native format
- An OCRed PDF of the transcript
-
An export of your annotated transcript (with notes, labels, etc.) to a PDF or Word document.
Only users with document download permission will be able to export transcripts.
- To download your annotations, choose Export annotations. A dialog opens to configure the export.
- Choose the format: a PDF, Word, or CSV.
- Choose whether you want to export the transcript and its annotations (including highlighted text) or just the annotations.
- If you select Annotations only, you can choose to exclude the Full Text Snippet and just display the citations in your export.
- If you export to Word, note that any notes on your highlights are displayed as Word comments. To see overlapping highlights more clearly in Word, select their associated comment to focus on its highlight.
- In PDFs, overlapping highlights blend highlight colors.
- Select Next.
- Choose whether to filter your exported highlights by label and, if so, which labels. All label categories and labels within the categories are selected by default. Select the carets to expose the list of labels, which you can select/deselect.
You can also choose to filter by testimony in your export (all highlights added to Story) and unlabeled highlights. - When you’re satisfied with your export specifications, select Export.
You can download an OCRed PDF of your transcript after it has been uploaded. For more information, see the Export Annotated Transcripts section.
Replace Transcript Files
Required permissions: Edit permissions on the Deposition
You might need to replace a transcript file, for example because the first transcript you received may not be the final transcript, or perhaps you uploaded the wrong file. You can replace your file within the transcript viewer.
Important
Replacing your transcript deletes all highlights, testimony, and associated annotations
To replace the transcript:
- Select the Settings
button in the toolbar.
- Select Replace transcript file. This opens the dialog to replace the transcript
-
Browse or drag and drop to select your new file. The same file type requirements apply to replacement as they do to new transcripts uploaded.
- When you’ve selected a file, select Replace.
You may experience a parsing or size limit error upon replacement. If this is the case, try a new file, or click Cancel to keep your existing file.
If your new transcript has a formatting error (text is parsable but not supported as a transcript format), then the file will be uploaded, replacing the old file. Text that is unselectable will be in grey.